


Pale Wildwood Flower

by maps



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1519310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maps/pseuds/maps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An au in which Steve Rogers runs a flower shop and Bucky Barnes happens to walk in, black jeans, painted nails, combat boots, and tattoos in all.</p><p>.::.::.</p><p>The bell jingles when someone walks into Wildwood Flower. It's the first of May, so when Steve Rogers turns to see a twenty-something guy with long dark hair dressed in all black, it isn't all that out of the ordinary. Mother's Day: May 11th. Second busiest time of the year. Now and February (for obvious reasons). It is nearly seventy-five degrees outside, so the jeans and long sleeved shirt do lend themselves for confusion. Or maybe genuine worry for his general wellbeing. Anyway, Steve kind of prides himself on how he's not easily surprised. </p><p>"Welcome to Wildwood Flower! If it's not terribly obvious, I'm Steve," he says and gestures to his name tag with one dirty hand, which has his name in a scratched looking hand writing.</p><p>The guy remains silent, glaring at Steve with dark lidded eyes.</p><p>Clearing his throat at the awkwardness, Steve says, "Well holler if you need anything," and goes back to potting the orange and peach tulips he'd gotten this morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pale Wildwood Flower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ite/gifts).



> sorry if some facts are wrong, i had to google them lol  
> also happy birthday, birthday girl
> 
> !!UPDATE: THE LAST TWO SENTENCES DIDN'T POST THE FIRST TIME THEY MEAN A LOT PLS READ THEM IF U CARRREEE!!

The bell jingles when someone walks into Wildwood Flower. It's the first of May, so when Steve Rogers turns to see a twenty-something guy with long dark hair dressed in all black, it isn't all that out of the ordinary. Mother's Day: May 11th. Second busiest time of the year. Now and February (for obvious reasons). It is nearly seventy-five degrees outside, so the jeans and long sleeved shirt do lend themselves for confusion. Or maybe genuine worry for his general wellbeing. Anyway, Steve kind of prides himself on how he's not easily surprised. 

"Welcome to Wildwood Flower! If it's not terribly obvious, I'm Steve," he says and gestures to his name tag with one dirty hand, which has his name in a scratched looking hand writing.

The guy remains silent, glaring at Steve with dark lidded eyes.

Clearing his throat at the awkwardness, Steve says, "Well holler if you need anything," and goes back to potting the orange and peach tulips he'd gotten this morning.

Black Jeans around the store. He stops near the bouquets of lavender and coral roses, which are the total and complete wrong roses to give to your mother. He even lingers dangerously long by the black ones and Steve considers hopping over the short front counter to deter the man from buying roses that symbolize love at first sight, desire, and death, but instead walks out from behind the counter. 

He sidles up to the man. "So what's her favorite color?" Steve asks, wiping his hands on the towel he keeps folded over the apron he wears tied around his hips.

Black Jeans looks like he's brooding, and answers through biting his black painted fingernails. "Doesn't have one."

"Ah, c'mon. 'Course she has one!" To which Black Jeans answers by walking toward the tulips. Behind him, Steve follows, glancing at his own nail beds thinking they're not much different with all the dirt caked in the cracks.

"Well you can never really go wrong with a variegated tulip. They symbolize the intricacies of the human iris and all their varying colors." Steve notices Black Jeans' clunky combat boots are untied when he squats down to look at—surprisingly—the variegated tulips on the floor. Steve is thinking about how he hasn't remembered that he needs to sweep today until right now, dammit, but then Black Jeans reaches out and cups a tulip blurred with white and pink. Steve kind of loses his train of thought because such a gentle act from someone so harsh looking was just so... well, surprising, really. 

Steve clears his throat for different reasons this time. "Those would be perfect. White means purity, innocence, and--"

"Forgiveness," Black Jeans says, eyes still locked on the velvet soft petals. "Pink: caring, attachment."

The stranger looks up at him. Steve blinks in reply.

Black Jeans: "Yeah."

What a smartass.

.::.::.

A week after Mother's Day, Steve's pride is still wounded at being surprised by some rude customer. Which, in retrospect, probably says a lot about Steve as a person. Well, it's not that. It’s just he doesn't really like losing and being surprised kind of feels like losing to him.

His flower shop closes early on Sundays, so he has cleaned up (the store), packed up his truck, and is out of there by six fifteen. The sun is still out, an aspect of spring he hasn't gotten used to yet.

Sometimes, when he has flowers that are starting to look, well, almost dead, he takes them up to the cemetery on the outskirts of town and puts them on lonely looking graves. He feels guilty that he's not giving the headstones fresh flowers, but figures he ought to at least leave the flowers he's got so their last good days can do some good. There's not enough of that in the world, Steve thinks. There's not enough good. His mind turns to Black Jeans Smartass and scoffs as he pulls into the cemetery parking lot.

The janitorial and maintenance staff knows him by now. Old Frank waves hello from the garbage can he's emptying by the door of the funeral home. Steve smiles and shouts, "Happy Sunday, Frank!" because Frank likes things like that. The old man doesn't respond, just smiles. He doesn't like to talk.

Steve unloads the week’s batch of old flowers (A couple dozen nearly wilted roses of varying colors, a few bouquets of a mix of different flowers and accented twigs and sprouts that make the artfully arranged bundles of color look a little more natural.) and place them on an old dolly that doesn't have a handle. He tied a rope to the axle ages ago and just pulls it along behind him as he walks down the clean-cut paths of the cemetery.

He has two bouquets, one in each hand, and is walking on the grass between headstones, making sure not to step on any of the graves. He's trying to find a home for the flowers to lay to rest forever. He imagines what it must have been like, eighty years ago when families would have designated plots in the town cemetery. How would it have felt to know where you'd be buried before you even died? He didn't like the idea of it. Caught up in thoughts of the past, as he often loses himself in, he almost doesn't catch it. He passes the grave almost without a second glance. A grave with white and pink variegated tulips resting against a weathered headstone, a small white card dangles and flutters in the light breeze by a strand of black ribbon.

Winifred C. Barnes  
A loving wife and mother.  
1898-1932

"Weird, huh?"

Steve jumps. Black Jeans is behind him, hands buried in dirty cargo pants, staring down at the inscription. His hair is pulled back today in a small ponytail that somehow makes him look familiar. Some strands aren't long enough to reach the band, and he's strung them behind his ears. He looks softer like this. Maybe it's because he isn't wearing all black today. Maybe it's because he's wearing a navy green tank top that does not leave much to the imagination. Steve is kind of in awe of his left arm, the entirety of which is tattooed to look robotic. Cool, he guesses, but yes, definitely weird.

"How so?" Steve asks, because he finds a lot about his current situation weird and doesn't know which aspect Jeans is referring to. 

"Read the card,” he says, his voice dry.

Steve squats down and shifts one of the bouquets to rest nuzzled in the crook of his arm so he can reach a free hand to steady the card: Love you Moms, Always and Forever -Bucky

He looks up at Bucky Black Jeans, the card still between his fingers, surprised as all hell. For some reason he doesn't know, he asks, "Why are you telling me this?" instead of the more logical question: Why would you expect me to believe this?

Bucky shrugs. "You looked familiar."

Steve stands, nodding thoughtfully. "How did you find my shop anyway? I mean, it's not that well know--"

"You left flowers on my dad's grave once," he says, and Steve is just about to ask when this happened when Bucky continues, "Few weeks back." Then he shrugs again for no apparent reason.

Steve is staring at this stranger and can't help it. With his hair pulled away from his face, his eyes don't look as dark. Just sad. He agrees, Bucky looks familiar, too, but he doesn't know how.

Bucky glances over at him. He doesn't smile, but Steve can see something in the lines of his face that he hadn't before. Something like a hint of an answer. He can't help but wonder if the fact he can't remember his past either has any correlation to this at all.

.::.::.

Two Sundays later, Bucky is waiting in the cemetery parking lot when Steve shows up. He doesn't notice him leaning against his motorcycle until he's half-done unloading this week’s flowers onto his dolly. When he does see him, though, he almost smiles.

Steve doesn't have many friends. He has Natasha, who is more someone he calls to invite to the bar and play pool and darts with and drink beer than an actual friend. And then there's Dr. Fury, who, in all honesty, kind of scares the living shit out of Steve but the man helped him after he woke up from a coma (with amnesia) so he guesses that's as good a basis for friendship as any. He has Sam, though. Sam's maybe his only true friend. They go running together almost every morning and play whatever video game Sam's obsessed with at the time. Sometimes they both get drunk with Tasha. They've had a few good times.

When he starts to walk over to the path that leads to the cemetery, Bucky does too. He wonders how Bucky would fit in with him and his few friends. Tattoos, mostly black clothes, sometimes wears smeared eyeliner, long hair... Steve usually isn't one to judge someone based on looks but he'd be lying if he said Natasha wasn't.

Steve shoots Bucky a questioning glance to which he answers with a shrug and, "Liked the idea of it," and that's enough for Steve Rogers, even if Bucky continually seems to surprise him.

They spend the next forty-five minutes dolling out bouquets, sometimes just single flowers, to flowerless graves, unremembered. The bright splotches of color give a sense of artificial life to the place, a contrast to the old dulled headstones with moss growing in the carved names, dates, and short eulogies. Steve didn't think he would like it, sharing this small act of good, with someone else. But it's a kind of silent niceness he didn't think could exist when he wasn't alone. A different kind of shared quiet space than when he and Sam have when time they run. It's almost like they have something in common, him and Bucky. Something shared.

By about seven fifteen, they're walking back to the parking lot. They maybe said about ten words to each other the whole time they were walking through the cemetery. Either way, Steve doesn't think it'll hurt to say a few more, "I'm starved. There's this brewery just down the street that has the best fish n' chips."

"How's their beer?" Bucky asks, straddling his motorcycle mid-sentence. 

Steve frowns, thinking. "Above average?" he supplies.

"Oh--" is all Steve can hear over the thunder of Bucky's bike engine coming to life. He assumes he'd been saying Okay, and heads to his truck.

Bucky waits for Steve to leave the parking lot first, so he thinks it's safe to say Bucky had said 'Okay.' So, Steve leads the way. They're there and parking (not next to each other, Steve notices) within five minutes. Traffic is never bad on Sunday nights.

Bucky is up and off his bike before Steve unbuckles his seat belt. He doesn't wait to walk into the bar. It's technically called Shield, but the sign just has a logo of a shield on it. Kind of pretentious, Steve thinks, or maybe just lazy.

He walks in, scanning the place while saying a distracted, "Hey, Sharon," to the host/server/bartender/manager. She practically runs this place, so obviously, she knows Steve; he comes here a lot. Sometimes alone, most of the time with Tasha or Sam. Except, he's known as Captain around here because of a very long and very drunk game of pool he'd played with Tasha few years back. Long story.

She smiles at him but he doesn't notice. "Hey, Cap."

Bucky's sitting at the bar. A sweating glass of light beer sat in front of him while his fingers fiddle with the cardboard coaster.

"What's with all the black?" Steve asks, referring today to Bucky's black fingernails, boots, and tank top. His jeans are normal denim and just as dirty as Steve's. Although, Steve had a valid reason for all the grime; he doesn’t know if Bucky Dirty Jeans does.

"What's with all the flowers?" he says back, kind of rudely. Steve's beginning to wonder if maybe that's just how he talks. Or maybe how he jokes.

Steve purses his lips. "Okay," he says, and orders fish n' chips and a dark beer for himself.

It's not until Geoff, the second bartender, hands Steve his food that Bucky says anything else.

"What's with the tattoo?" Steve looks down at his right bicep where a white five-pointed star rests on a backdrop of a blue circle with three bands around it all alternating between red and white. He kind of forgets he has it sometimes. It's just a part of his skin now. He wonders if that's how Bucky feels about his robotic arm.

Steve shrugs, adopting a Bukey-esque response, and says, "I think it might mean something."

Bucky smiles at Steve for the first time since they've met, and lifts his arm enough for Steve to notice (as if the bionic-ness of it wasn't already eye-catching enough). "Know the feeling."

.::.::.

It's become a kind of routine for them: sometimes Bucky will be waiting at the cemetery on Sunday evenings, sometimes he won't. Sometimes they walk around the cemetery for an extra fifteen minutes after their last flower was given a grave and have short-worded conversations. Sometimes they grab a beer together afterword, like the first time. Sometimes they don’t. Steve comes to look forward to the days Bucky does show up, but he doesn't know exactly when that had started. Or when seeing one of Bucky's rare smiles started making his stomach drop.

Other times Steve will reopen the store after lunch and see Bucky leaning against his motorcycle, no helmet in sight. Once, six weeks from their first meeting, this happens. Steve props open the door to let a breeze in and calls, “You should wear a helmet when you ride that thing.” Bucky just shrugs and walks his clunky feet into the shop.

“Hungry?” Steve asks him. Bucky raises his eyebrows and Steve points to the teriyaki he had for lunch where it sits in a Styrofoam container on the front counter beside empty stucco pots and an open bag of dirt. Bucky hops onto the counter without asking and starts eating it with the fork Steve had left under the closed lid.

“Never had this growing up,” Bucky says after a few bites. “S’good.” His mouth is full.

Steve’s rearranging the shop. Halfway into June, the flower tastes have usually changed from motherly to summery. So he moves the sections of flowers around so the most popular ones are the easiest to find and the closest to the big windows at the front of the store. He just got a batch of asters, coreopsises and dahlias, purple coneflowers, gauras, purple fountain grass, and a few penstemon this morning: very summery. He never gets rid of roses though. They’re what he calls The Timeless Flower. He’s fairly certain they’ll outlive every flower fad there is. They’re just classic.

Steve smiles up from where he’s sitting, cross-legged in front of a shelf of asters, the blue of them vibrant against the backdrop of all the greens and sunset reds. “Yeah? Didn’t have much diversity in the 20s, did they?” he asks, only half mocking.

Some rice falls from the corner of Bucky’s mouth. “No,” he says, flicking the rice at Steve, “there wasn’t.”

Steve dodges the clump of tiny white grains, and runs a hand through his hair. He’s practically given up on ever being completely clean ever again, so the fact that his hand is covered in dirt doesn’t even bother him. He wonders what Bucky thinks of it, then realizes what a stupid thing that is to wonder. Bucky’s just as messy as he is. (He told Steve on one of their longer walks through the cemetery that he dabbles in construction work here and there. “Gets me by,” he’d said. Such a Bucky thing, too.)

Bucky lowers the teriyaki, looking somber. “You ever, think—wonder what you were like before? Or why you can’t remember anything?”

Steve picks up the few asters and moves them to where the roses had been. He’d shared with Bucky his similar feelings of a barely remembered past. (And by ‘barely,’ Steve really means ‘not at all.’) As he answers Bucky, he walks behind the counter and starts to fill three of the empty pots with dirt.

“How could I not? I mean, you know what it’s like. I just woke up in place I’d never been before and had to learn everything all over again. Including my name. Amnesia isn’t fun.” He puts three impatien pods in each pot, then pours more dirt over the top of them. “I didn’t even have anyone who thought they knew me. From before. That’s the worst part.”

Bucky’d stayed facing the front of the shop, so Steve can’t see his face. He watches his back; the muscles there are relaxed, the ones in his “bionic” arm flex as he moves the fork to his mouth again.

He nods. “Maybe they’re dead,” he says. “Like mine.”

.::.::.

It’s humid and raining. Steve’s considering just going home because who the hell will buy flowers in this downpour? He opens the windows just enough to let the smallest sound through, thinking that maybe the sound of rain will fake his mind into thinking it’s not weirdly hot in this shop. He’s actually done all the work he’d planned to do today, so he’s sweeping a giant dirt pile into a dustpan when the bell above the door jingles.

He looks up, kind of knowing who he’ll see, and meets eyes with Bucky Barnes. His hair is down and drips water down its stringy ropes. The black jeans that are usually kind of baggy stick to his legs in a way that does not look natural (or comfortable.) At least he’s wearing his long sleeved shirt, Steve thinks. The black on Bucky’s eyelids is smeared all around and under his eyes. But he doesn’t look angry or sad or anything really. Just a pleasantly familiar face.

“What could be so important that you rode your bike here? In this?” Steve points through the glass front door.

“Beer?” Bucky asks. Steve isn’t sure if he means that beer is the important thing or if Bucky asking him to go get a beer with him is. He smiles and is surprised again at the butterflies in his gut. (That’s four times now, but Steve’s definitely not counting.)

“Sure, but I’m driving. You shouldn’t ride in that.” Bucky gives him a weird look and Steve maybe regrets saying that.

They agree, after some bickering, to pull Bucky’s bike into the store. The center and main isle is wide enough for it to rest comfortably. The squeakiness its wheels and both their shoes make on the (now) wet ground makes Steve thankful he decided to sweep today. Bucky’s walking is waddled and Steve can see the man’s in obvious discomfort. He makes the executive decision to just head to his place rather than Shield. He’s got some beer there, and they he can dry Bucky’s clothes while they drink them.

Bucky knows what’s happening the second Steve takes a right out of the parking lot. “Where are we going?”

“Buck, man, you look miserable.” Bucky just stares blankly at him. “I have beer and a dryer at my place?” Steve says.

Bucky sighs, annoyed, but doesn’t object. Steve takes that as some kind of an admittance, even though he probably shouldn’t.

They get there in fifteen minutes and Bucky follows Steve to the apartment complex’s front door. The elevator ride consists of Bucky sighing and the sound of him dripping water, which only proves Steve’s point more.

Steve leads the way into his apartment, mentioning for Bucky to “Make himself at home while he gets him something to wear while his clothes dry.” It turns out to be really hard to find something that will both please and fit Bucky. He doesn’t have any jeans that will fit him and he doesn’t think he’ll want to wear sweats for some reason. Baggy jeans it is. Steve’s kind of inappropriately excited to see Bucky in his clothes, which is kind of creepy and borderline not exactly straight.

“Will these work for you?” Steve says as he walks out from his bedroom. Bucky’s already taken off his shirt and his tattoo looks real in the not-so-great lighting of Steve’s apartment. Steve kind of stares at his back and how his shoulder blades move as Bucky stretches his arms up, yawning. He turns, hopefully not noticing the stunned expression on Steve’s face (That’s five, now.), and takes the jeans from Steve’s hand.

His black-smeared eyes almost crinkle at the sides. He shrugs. “’Guess.” Steve smiles.

Steve walks to the kitchen while Bucky changes out of his still dripping jeans to get them both a beer. When he returns, Bucky’s standing in nothing but Steve’s jeans. They hang loosely on his hips and look dangerously close to falling off. Steve takes a breath.

“Beer,” he says, handing a bottle to Bucky. Who makes a disgusted sound and says, “Malheur? Really?”

Steve’s taken aback. “What’s wrong with Malheur?”

Bucky sounds disgusted again. “Dark beer....” He shakes his head, but takes the bottle opener from Steve anyway.

“What,” Steve says, shrugging. “It’s Belgium?”

Bucky laughs and the sight and sound is kind of overwhelming.

He stays until long after his clothes are dried. They end up watching baseball, something they both believe to be the best American pastime there is. Very old fashioned. Steve makes more than one joke about Bucky only liking it because he’s ninety-two years old and completely boring and super old. And Bucky laughs more than Steve thought he could. It’s kind of actually one of the best nights Steve can remember having in his recent memory. Which, albeit, isn’t that long. (Seven years.) But still.

Later in the night, they’re sitting on the couch too drunk to care that there are only infomercials playing on the TV now, and Steve is feeling particularly sleepy. He glances at Bucky to his right. His eyes are drooping, too. He never took off the eyeliner for some reason, and it makes him look even more tired. Steve laughs quietly to himself when Bucky’s head finally droops with his eyes and falls to rest against Steve’s bicep. And, looking down at him through his drunken haze, Bucky somehow reminds him of a song he never remembers hearing. He hums the tune to himself, singing the lyrics in his head while he traces the metallic lines in Bucky’s tattoo:

Oh, I long to see him and regret the dark hour  
He's gone and neglected this pale wildwood flower

“This pale, wildwood flow’rrr,” Bucky sings, slurred and groggily.

“You know it?” Steve asks. Bucky just shrugs.

Steve falls asleep watching the contrast of his tan skin against Bucky’s robotic arm.

He wakes up to a folded pair of jeans on the coffee table and black smudges all over his white tee shirt. He smiles at them, the marks a sleeping Bucky must have made. Stretching, he doesn’t realize the shower was running until it shuts off and the absence of sound is jolting.

A few minutes later, Bucky Barnes walks out of Steve Roger’s bathroom in his own clean clothes. His hair is wet, but tied back in a ponytail. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to the elbows. His feet patter the ground as he walks around on the hardwood flooring barefoot. He points to Steve’s shirt.

“Sorry.”

Steve laughs. “Don’t worry about it, Buck.”

Bucky smiles at him; it reaches his eyes. They crinkle at the sides and actually look warm. Steve hopes it isn’t obvious his stomach just dropped through the floor. He covers the mess up by saying, “Do you have one of your odd jobs today?”

Bucky shakes his head. A strand of hair falling to his face from where it was tucked behind his ear. His black profile is kind of perfect against the sun trying to shine in through the closed blinds.

Bucky gives him a weird look, probably because Steve was totally not staring at him. “Let’s go get your bike, yeah?”

Bucky just shrugs.

Smartass.

.::.::.

It’s been nearly three months since the first time Bucky walked into his shop, and this is what Steve knows: he likes the color black, but knows what the colors of flowers mean; he's short-spoken and has sad eyes; he likes (light) beer more than water and doesn't wear a helmet; his name is James Buchanan Barnes, he can't remember sixty years prior to seven years ago and he was born in 1922. Just a handful of facts really, but Steve feels like he knows him because he knows how to recognize Bucky’s movements and how to translate them into words. Steve knows the sound of his voice because short and seldom spoken sentences tend to leave a lasting mark. Steve knows there’s something about their pasts that go together, he just doesn’t know how yet.

But he still hasn't told Sam or Tasha about him. Really, though, how could he? He couldn't tell Fury even if he wanted to, so at least that saves him another person to try and explain the unexplainable. He doesn't know how he'd say it anyhow. Oh, by the way guys, I made a new friend. Technically he's ninety-two, but barely looks over twenty-five! He’s also extremely handsome! Crazy, I know! It wouldn't work.

Sam's wandering around the shop while Steve is closing up, which really means picking out the close-to-death flowers, counting the till, and hopefully remembering to do the sweeping.

"Black? Black flowers, really?" Sam's by the black roses. "Who the hell would buy black roses?"

Steve's hands pause their pruning of dead leaves and he thinks of the first time Bucky came in here and answers, before he realizes it was a semi-rhetorical question, "A guy came in here once and almost bought some."

"You don't say," Sam says, squatting down behind in the isle so Steve can't see him anymore. "They are kind of beautiful, in their own dark, scary, creepy way," Sam continues distractedly. 

Steve audibly agrees. "You should check out the Tiger Lilies. Isle six.”

He does. Steve doesn’t look up to see, but hears Sam say, “Scary sons of bitches,” under his breath so it’s basically the same thing.

The bell dings, signaling someone walking in. Dammit, Steve thinks. He always forgets to lock the door after he turns the We’re Open! sign to Sorry, We’re Closed.

“Sorry, but I’m actually clo—“ But Steve stops because it’s Bucky (He would be one to walk right passed a Closed sign.), in his usual black jeans, combat boots, and painted nails. Only this time, he’s got on a grey tee shirt that says The Beatles on it in a squiggly font. Steve makes a face at him and Bucky shrugs, like he does, as if that means Hey, I missed the whole phase. Somehow, this makes Steve laugh; he understands. Bucky smiles.

Sam’s head pops up from between two isles. “Ah, Sam, this is Bucky. Buck, this is Sam.”

Bucky stiffens as Sam walks up to him. Steve realizes Bucky didn’t know anyone else was here. Maybe he wouldn’t have bypassed the Closed sign if he’d have known.

Bucky looks from Sam to Steve and back again. He shakes Sam’s outstretched hand and nods his hello.

“So Bucky—” (This is the point at which Steve knows Sam, if it were anybody else who didn’t look completely uncomfortable, would clap Bucky on the shoulder.) “—how do you know Cap’n Rogers here?”

Steve adjusts the forlorn plants on the front counter. “Sam, he doesn’t—“

“Helped me pick out flowers,” Bucky says with a shrug, surprising Steve for the sixth time now. (No, he’s definitely not counting.)

Sam, trying to carry a dead conversation, says, “Well after this we’re both headed over to Shield? The bar up on tenth? You should come!” Bucky glances to Steve. “I didn’t know old Stevie had any friends besides me and Tash.”

Steve rolled his eyes. That was such a Sam thing to say; Bucky doesn’t know who Tash is. Why would he bring it up? Now that Steve thinks about it, why hadn’t he brought them up to Bucky? He’d never even so much as mentioned them. Maybe Sharon at Shield had said their names once or twice, but he’d never directly told him about them. He wonders if it’s just because he (not so) subconsciously wants to keep their silent walks and short talks to himself. Maybe sharing it would lessen the value of it all. Steve knows that’s probably bullshit, but he likes to think Bucky might be starting to become important to him.

Bucky doesn’t return Sam’s smile. “I’m in the same boat, looks like.”

Sam laughs. “Yeah, it looks like it.”

They head to the bar. It’s only when they get there that Steve realizes he forgot to sweep. (Again.)

.::.::.

They’re handing out flowers to dead people again. It’s Sunday. They’ve been quiet for almost the whole time. Bucky helped unload the week’s near-dead flowers, and while they walk under the sun, he keeps clenching and unclenching the fist that isn’t holding flowers. Steve thinks it’s kind of ironic that this big bad tough guy in all black and combat boots and sleeve of robotic tattoos is holding a bouquet of flowers that are varying shades of baby girl pink. He thinks it’s not only very funny, but also kind of cute.

“I lied to you,” Bucky says. Steve stand from where he’d been squatting to lay a single white rose on a grave.

“What-?”

“The reason I walked into your shop wasn’t because I saw your flowers on my father’s grave. Isn’t even buried here. It was the name.” He sets the pink bouquet on the grave of a seven year old girl who would now be almost fifty. There are remnants of old cards and a dead wreath. Almost forgotten, but not quiet.

“Wildwood Flower?” Steve asks, feeling stupid as his mouth speaks without letting him think first. He remembers Bucky singing that short line from the song, reminded only by Steve’s humming. “But it’s just an old-”

Bucky interrupts him, his voice flat:

“Oh, I'll twine with my mingles and waving black hair  
With the roses so red and the lilies so fair  
And the myrtle so bright with the emerald due  
The pale and the leader and eyes look like blue”

“Sound familiar?” he asks. Steve just nods. He can feel sweat dripping down his spine, and knows that Bucky is probably dying in his jeans. At least he’s wearing Chuck Taylors instead of combat boots, and an old tee shirt that’s ripped down the sides and splattered with paint.

“Thought you’d agree.”

“Why?”

Bucky shrugs. “Maybe it means something important,” he says, borrowing Steve’s own words.

.::.::.

The second time Sam, Bucky, and Steve head to the bar, Tash meets them at there. Bucky’s eyes kind of go wide when he sees her, and Steve knows he was right to want to keep their gestured conversations, baseball, and talk of tattoos to himself. Either way, he buys everyone a round of beer.

Bucky give him a strange look. Steve kind of just bought Bucky’s favorite beer without noticing. It wouldn’t be obvious except it’s been stated (more than once) by Steve that he kind of hates light beer while they both know that Bucky doesn’t drink anything else—that time at Steve’s apartment excluded.

After two more rounds, Bucky loosens up a bit and talks to Tasha almost in a normal, social way. (He kind of got used to Sam the first time.)

“So Bucky,” Tasha says, her lips making an innocent question a form of seduction, “what do you do?”

Bucky shrugs. “Jobs here and there. Construction, maintenance. Good….”

Steve excused himself to buy another round for them all. He’s already heard the story of Bucky’s work history. He gives Geoff his order and smiles at the thought that he knows more about Buck than probably anyone does.

“See Stevie?!” Natasha yells to his back. “Bucky’s good with his hands!” Steve laughs, shaking his head, assuming she’s already picked up on the way he watches Bucky in the maybe half an hour they’ve all been here. She’s observant, but even this is record time for her. It’s so Tasha.

Someone clears their throat beside him. Steve looks to his left and his third-turned-fourth and final friend is leaning against the counter, his back to the mirror reflecting duplicates of all the liquor bottles behind the bar. Steve offers his own beer to Fury, to which he refuses, so Steve takes a swig before saying:

“Fury, old man, how’ve you been?”

“Livin’ and learnin’, as always.” He grunts, his good eye watching Tasha tell Sam and Bucky an animated story. Sam’s obviously enthralled, but Bucky looks like he’s just sitting there. He’s relaxed though, his back isn’t stiff, his shoulders aren’t square; Steve knows he’s having a good time.

“What brings you here? Don’t you have an experiment to perform or something?” Steve asks. He laughs at his own joke, feeling cheeky from the alcohol in his bloodstream.

“Actually, I needed to talk to you about something, Steve,” Fury says. He looks at Steve when he says his name. Steve knows it’s probably serious because he used his real name, not Cap or Cap’n.

“Yeah?” Steve says, setting his beer on the tray with the others. “What is it?”

Fury looks back at their table, where Tasha has now finished her story and has Sam cracking up. Bucky glances around, (hopefully) wondering where Steve is and why he’s been gone for so long. He looks back at Steve and Fury, and Steve, being fluent in Bucky Body Language, sees fear and anger plainly in the way Bucky leans back, fists clenched, eyes wide, and locked on Dr. Fury.

.::.::.

“No! Steve, no I don’t want to talk to him!” They’re outside. That’s probably the first time Bucky’s ever said his name. Steve realizes he’s kind of lost count with how many times Buck’s surprised him.

“Bucky, you don’t understand. He saved me. I didn’t know who I was when I woke up. He—“ Bucky cuts him off by getting a fistful of Steve’s tee shirt and pushing him up against Shield’s brick wall.

“No, Steve, you don’t understand. I don’t remember anything from my past. Just my parents. And him.” Bucky spits on the ground and lets Steve’s shirt go. It’s wrinkled in a deflated way, like it wants to be held by Bucky again.

Steve’s ears perk up. Maybe Dr. Fury helped Bucky when he woke up too? It actually makes sense. Remembering the joke he’d said to Fury inside, he says, “What if we were part of an experiment or something?”

Bucky’s eyes look dark again for the first time in weeks. His eyebrows twitch. Steve knows he’ll talk to Fury now.

They get in Fury’s black Expedition that’s been waiting for them, idling a few yards away. Fury makes eyecontact with Steve through the rearview mirror. Something in his expression looks off, but Steve can’t place it. It’s just not right.

He glances at Bucky beside him; he’s shaking, either from fear or anger or both. Steve tries to smile, but fails. Bucky grabs his hand, and Steve tries not to be surprised. But fails. He squeezes his fingers.

Looking ahead, the oncoming traffic blurs together and Steve knows what he saw etched on Fury’s face, now: apology.

But what is he sorry for?

.::.::.

He feels so sleepy. Why can’t he keep his eyes open? He feels Bucky’s hand in his and wonders where they are. He vaguely thinks he’s supposed to be in a car…but everything is too blurry.

Images. He sees images. Himself, Bucky too. Bucky, with short hair, smiling all the time. Never looks harsh. Bucky at the beach, playing guitar. Singing. Singing to him. “Oh, he taught me to love him and called me his flower. / That was blooming to cheer him through life's dreary hour.” Guitar. Bucky. Sand. Sun. Flowers. Lillies. The Timeless Rose. Bucky.

He gasps through water splashed on his face, and coughs it up. He tries to move, to reach for Bucky’s hand that’s disappeared, but he’s strapped to a chair.

Muffled voices, blurred faces. “…remembered. How…hell could they…ber?”

“His damn…store…named Wi…wood Flower. Some…called him Cap’n…ridiculous.” Familiar voice.

“…the human subconscious…stronger than we…ought.”

“Even after…reversal procedure was….”

Steve groans, trying to ask where he is. “Wwwh….”

“Which one is this?” New voice.

“Rogers, Steve. Born: 1920, July fourth.”

“And the other?”

“Barnes, James Buchanan. Born: 1922, March tenth.”

“The Personality and Preference tests were performed on them after being thawed, correct?”

Steve recognizes the familiar voice to be Dr. Fury. Bucky was right. “Correct.”

“Then do it again. Make one a writer. Artsy. Make the other a lawyer. Doesn’t matter which. It needs to stick.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Natasha, no more flowers.”

“Of course.”


End file.
